Publications
Ballot & Election Material Design

Design Deficiencies and Lost Votes

In 2010, tens of thousands of votes in New York did not count due to overvotes — the invalid selection of more than one candidate. This report demonstrates how the lack of adequate overvote protections disproportionately affected the state's poorest communities, suggests commonsense reforms, and examines national implications.

Authored by: Lawrence Norden and Sundeep Iyer
– 12/05/11

Better Ballots

Eight years after the 2000 election, and billions of dollars spent on new voting technology, the problems caused by poor ballot design have not been fully and effectively addressed on a national level. Year in and year out, we see the same mistakes in ballot design, with the same results: disenfranchisement.

Authored by: Lawrence Norden, David Kimball, Whitney Quesenbery, and Margaret Chen
– 07/20/08